Headphones for Drumset at Church

xb2003

New member
Right now, my church uses stage monitors for the drummer (who is often me) and I would like to switch over to using headphones. We have an in-wall snake running from the booth to the stage, and I am just trying to decide the best way to go about doing this. I'm torn between:

Buying a cheap headphone amp and using an aux out on the mixer.
-I will have to make some sort of a splitter cable or figure out how to make balanced trs convert to unbalanced stereo trs, the latter seems complicated. This would depend on what type of inputs the headphone amp I choose has.
-I will have to make a cable that converts stereo trs to xlr to run it through the snake, and then obviously another to go back to trs at the stage. I am out of returns on the snake, and they are not balanced returns (The setup has the power amplifiers in the booth)

Or, what I would rather do:
Pick up one of these guys.. Behringer 802 | Sweetwater.com
-Run the drums (they are electronic) into one of the stereo inputs (for stereo monitoring)
-Run an aux out from the main mixer into the other line input (for the rest of the monitor mix)
-Use the fx channel (aux send) on this board to send the drums back to the main mixer.
I like this way better because I can eq the headphones, at least a little, my drums are in stereo for monitoring purposes (mono electric drums just sound all the more unrealistic..), and I can do a quick monitor adjustment for my purposes. I have never messed with doing something like this, and I want to make sure I am not missing anything that will cause issues for me.

One other thing; since the output of the mixer will be at line level, it would be best to use the line input on the main mixer as opposed to using a direct box and going into an xlr input, right?

Thanks!
 
I'm with option 2. It gives you the flexibility to have your own mix and still lets the sound guy do what's needed with your drums. Also, it's less complicated. The less conversions/fixes, the better.

Yes definitely use line in instead of converting a conversion. (again, less conversions/fixes)
 
Yeah that's what I was thinking. I'm still going to have to go TRS to XLR to go through the wall, but cable is cable.
 
Option 2 is the in ear setup I built for may old band a few years back, everyone have a cheap behringer mixer with a line in from the drum loops & samplers, a Y cable so they could have their own vocal split direct from their mic, and a line or mic in from their own instrument. Each person could balance the in ears as they wanted.

So you solution is very similar.

Alan.
 
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